


Interpretation of Dreams

by likeadeuce



Category: Iron Man (Comic), Marvel, The Order (Comic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-15
Updated: 2010-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-07 07:22:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeadeuce/pseuds/likeadeuce
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were in Henry Hellrung's private suite at the Beverly Hilton, and they'd had enough to drink that Tony was talking about his dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Interpretation of Dreams

"Be honest. Tell me what you think it means." Tony pushed the bottle down along the bar. He rubbed his lip with the back of his hand, stopping to taste a stray drop of Irish whiskey off of his skin. They were in Henry Hellrung's private suite at the Beverly Hilton, and they'd had enough to drink that Tony was talking about his dreams.

"Ahh -- you want to -- you're asking _me_?" Henry reached for the ice tongs and busied himself preparing a drink, but Tony knew he was weighing his answer. Even when he was drunk, Henry thought about everything before he said it, a habit that could be endearing when it wasn't exasperating. And, in fairness, it hadn't been an easy question. "Is this -- ahh -- is this a trick? Because it sounds like it means -- that is, I'm just an actor, of course, I'm not a psychologist but --" Henry looked down at his glass, shrugged, took a drink, and resurfaced to say, "It sounds like you sort of want to have sex with Captain America."

"No!" Tony slammed his fist down on the bar so that the glasses jumped. "You're not listening. It's not a sex dream. I have plenty of sex dreams, but this a _marriage_ dream. Not the same thing."

Henry's eyes moved slowly from Tony's hand, to the bottle, and back to his own glass. "This is true. This is very very true." Then he did what was clearly the only sensible thing: took a long drink, and slammed the glass back on the bar, pronouncing, "I have been married. I concede the point."

Tony drained his own drink and reached out to take the bottle from Henry. Their hands touched and under the bar, their knees touched, and neither of them moved away. Tony filled his glass. "I didn't know you had a wife." Henry didn't wear a ring, and he'd certainly never showed any scruples that Tony could detect about letting anybody of either gender into his bed. But then, neither of those facts decided the issue.

"Oh, just the usual. Long time ago -- another country -- and besides --" Henry's voice trailed off, and he turned his empty glass upside down. Softly, he said. "I need --" He picked up the bottle and seemed to waver for a moment, then pushed it away. "What I need is a drink of water.

"Here." Tony filled a glass and watched Henry chug it down. His face was flushed, his beard beaded with sweat and, though by Tony's reckoning he couldn't have been a day over twenty-seven, at that moment his eyes looked hollow and haunted and old. It wasn't a secret that Henry looked like a lot like Tony. Henry had his current job _because_ he looked a lot like Tony. For the first time, Tony thought he could understand what they meant, his employees who were also his closest friends, when he dragged himself into the office after a long night and someone timidly said, _Gee, boss, you don't look so good._

"You all right?" Tony said, after a long moment. Somehow, his hand was on Henry's knee when he said it.

"Yes, I --" He looked down, looked up, pushed the glass away. "I just had a moment there -- you know how that is." And then, Tony was pretty sure, Henry deliberately slid so that the hand moved further up his thigh. "So, ah, have you told him?"

"Him who?" said Tony. He had entirely lost the thread of the conversation, wrapped up as he was in calculating exactly how narcissistic it was to discover you wanted to fuck the actor who portrayed, for a few million dedicated viewers, a younger, just slightly prettier version of yourself. And, supposing you wanted that, was it better or worse that you only discovered you wanted to fuck him the moment you started to suspect he was every bit as screwed up as you were?

"Captain America," Henry answered. "Does he know you want to marry him?" And now he was unmistakably moving closer. Now his hand was in Tony's lap, and Tony's body responded the way you might reasonably expect it to, and Henry looked up at him with a smile.

"I haven't proposed," Tony said gravely. "There's not a formal arrangement."

"But maybe, like, an, ahh --" His fingers started to work on Tony's belt. " an understanding."

"No understanding," said Tony, and watched as Henry got down on his knees. "Tragically. The man is so straight, I don't think his eyes would cross."

Good," said Henry. "Because I wouldn't want to make a -- what's the word, you know for somebody whose wife -- or, ahh, spouse -- well, I wouldn't want to do that -- to Captain America."

"Shut up, Henry," Tony said, gruffly, ruffling the kid's hair and then, with the compulsion of the incurable know-it-all, added, "Cuckold."

"Right. Right. Cuckold." He started to pull at Tony's waistband, then looked up. "You think you'll have that dream tonight?"

"Most definitely _not_," Tony lied. "Also. You tell anybody about this, your career is over."

"Yes," Henry agreed, with a long sigh. "Yes. I think it probably would be."


End file.
